This blog takes an interest in issues associated with Freedom of Information (FOI) and privacy legislation in Australia. Information contained on this site is general in nature and does not constitute legal
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Friday, May 12, 2006

Major fallout over secret collection of phone call data in US

USA Today reports that the US National Security Agency has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

There’s no mention of whether phone call records held by these companies relating to calls in countries other than the US have been collected.

British Columbia and Nova Scotia provinces are in the process of introducing legislation to require information about Canadians to be held in Canada, seeking to avoid the reach of the Patriot Act. (Thanks to David Fraser's Canadian Privacy Blog for the lead).

When the issue was first raised by the British Columbian Information and Privacy Commissioner the South Australian Government (at that time all SA IT functions were outsourced to the US company EDS) issued a statement that they were satisfied that the BC report carried no implications for SA data - I can't find this on the web.

I haven't seen any other public reference to this issue by Australian governments or heard a peep out of Australian privacy commissioners.

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About Me

Peter Timmins is an Australian lawyer and consultant who works on FOI and privacy protection issues in Sydney, NSW. He has Arts and Laws (Honours) degrees
from the University of Sydney, and has been involved in the FOI field for 25 years.Peter is an experienced public speaker and commentator. See In the News and Testimonials, and Career Summary for more details on background and experience.